


The Families

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Voices From The Zone [4]
Category: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Genre: Cancer, Exploration, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Journalism, LGBTQ Themes, Loss of Identity, Mental Institutions, Murder, Original Character Death(s), Post-Game(s), Revenge, Science Fiction, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:45:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8469295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon





	1. About Brothers

I was sixteen when he left.

He was just sitting at the table in the apartment, staring at his hands. I had no idea what he was thinking, but the look on his face… it was so scary.

“Lyonya, what are you doing?”

“I have to go away for a while.”

“To where?”

“Well… this place… you know, in Ukraine… they have miracles there… I had a friend at work, his cousin went there, heard about these miracles from someone else. The guy’s pop was sick, you know… so he was looking for this miracle… and I just thought, you know, maybe I can find one for Aunt Nadya.”

My poor aunt - she’d had a terrible stroke. My mother was worried about her all the time, and went to the hospital with candies. My father would just watch her go out the door to go to the hospital again, and he would just sigh.

For me, I was scared for my brother… I didn’t want him to leave Belarus, or even Dvorishcha. School was about to end for me, too. It was just generally scary for me in that time. So when he left that morning, I didn’t know what to do.

We didn’t see him for a few days. Then a few weeks. Then, a few months, and into a year. After a year and a half, we stopped counting. We knew something had happened to him, but none of us would say it. My aunt didn’t really get better, but at least she didn’t get worse. I wanted to go to school, but I never did because I was too busy helping my mother take care of Aunt Nadya. She would live at home with us for a few weeks, then back in the hospital, then back with us. We were starting to run out of money to bribe the doctors with, I worked in a little store and the money I made went for the bribes. I never had money for anything, and my friends were all leaving too, to go to school or get married. The whole world was on its head for me, and the worst part was when I eventually got what I wished for… almost three years after he’d left, Lyonya finally came back.

We barely knew who he was, and he barely knew who he was, too. He’d always been thin, but now he was emaciated, his eyes sunk into his head and the bones in his neck visible. He came back to us in dirty gray army clothes, with a dark green protective vest strapped to him. He had a rusty gun on his back, there was old blood all over him, his boots were caked in mud and falling apart. All his hair was gone, too. He couldn’t really remember himself, or how he’d come home to us. He didn’t remember our parents, or his friends, or why he left. He didn’t remember leaving at all, even. He only remembered me.

We didn’t know what was wrong with him. He could barely talk anymore, and stared at us with wide, empty eyes. We had to help him clean himself up, and I watched him all night - why? I don’t know. The next morning we woke him up, fed him, but he wasn’t any better. He’d muttered something about “brothers” in his sleep, and other things, but that was the only word that made sense. He’d also said something about “enemies of the crystal” or something like that.

Before he left us, Lyonya had been so talkative, and so smart. But now he was still and quiet, barely looking at us. Sometimes, I think, he didn’t know we were there at all. So after three days, my mother brought him to the doctor to have him checked. The doctor spent hours trying to figure him out, calling in other doctors to look at him too, doing scans of his head. After that they didn’t let him go.

Lyonya was sent all the way to Minsk, to a special mental hospital. This made things worse for us, too, constantly going from one hospital to another - first to Aunt Nadya, and then to Lyonya, who was very far away. And we had very little money left for bribes. Although… we didn’t have to bribe them for my brother. The doctors had never seen such a thing, it was a whole new thing, they said, and they wanted to study him. He was so interesting that we never had to ask for everything, they did it all, watching him all the time, talking with him, tending to him. They tried all kinds of medicines and procedures on him, in different combinations and under the care of different doctors. His case was sent to all the other doctors in Belarus, they all wanted to be in on such an interesting mystery. I still feel upset to think about it. I wanted to scream, to punch and kick them. Lyonya’s my brother, and they only ever talked about him as a lab animal.

I went with my mother to visit him whenever we could, and when we left, my mother grew more sad. Because I’m the only one he remembered, even a little. He didn’t know my name, but he knew _me,_ which was the important thing. And he inspired me, even.

I still feel terrible about this… I was almost happy when Aunt Nadya had a second stroke. Of course I was sad for my aunt. But now I could save my money again, it was easier to go visit Lyonya. And he made me realize… maybe I could help him. He was talking less and less, he remembered me but completely forgot himself. I started school then, to become a doctor. I would become a doctor and learn how to help my brother get better. When I wasn’t busy with school, I would spend as much time as I had with him, talking to him, even on the days when he said nothing back. I felt horrible leaving him alone at that place, with all those people poking and prodding him because he didn’t know any better.

On the very last day that I ever visited him, he couldn’t even speak anymore. They’d moved him to a normal hospital now, because he was growing tumors in his bones. The doctors and nurses would check on him every so often, they wanted me to leave so that they could do their procedures, but I wouldn’t. They tried to throw me out, but I yelled and swore at them and eventually begged. One of the nurses felt bad for me, and she tried to get them to let me stay. It came down to greasing the doctors’ palms, in the end, as it so often goes. I gave them all the money I had on me. And as a reward, I was allowed to sit in that one room, never moving, for thirteen hours until Lyonya finally stopped breathing.

I called my mother crying to tell her what happened, and since I had no money she drove all the way to Minsk to bring me home.

I’m still in school. I’ll still be a doctor, for my brother and for my aunt. It’s difficult, but every time I want to give up, I think of Lyonya and keep going. And… I’m glad that you’re writing about this. I want you to write about it. Something changed my brother in that place, killing him so slowly. Every day I visited him, I felt like I was watching him die. Please write about my brother. I know, out there, are other families whose sons and brothers are suffering just like Lyonya did. So write about him, about us. Write so that someone will help them.

  
_Yulya Pavelevshuk, sister of a deceased Monolithian soldier_


	2. About Mercenaries

I have a cousin who I’m very close with, we talk all the time, even now that he went to the Zone. I don’t really know much about it, he was gone for a year but then came back, though he was a little quieter after that. We would still go places together, and anytime we were driving, if there was some kind of odd or abandoned building we passed, he would always joke: “Check for stashes.” I didn’t know what that meant until he explained to me that a stash was a little pile of useful items that could be found sometimes out in the Zone.

“What did you do there, Andruha?”

“Just work, really, I got paid pretty well. Mostly just running around finding things, or finding other people.”

He wouldn’t really tell me anything beyond that, but after that I would sometimes joke to him that we should look for stashes, and he thought that was very funny even though I’d never been there. What was weird, actually, was that sometimes I’d see him holding a gun that wasn’t Russian, staring at it almost longingly. But when I asked him about _that,_ he still wouldn’t say much, just that sometimes he thought about going back. I didn’t really know why, he had a good job, we were in the same fire brigade. And occasionally he just looked _nervous,_ as if he thought some monster was sneaking up on him, but of course he wouldn’t tell me why. He didn’t want to talk about the Zone. So why did he always think about returning there? I knew next to nothing about the Zone at that time, so it was beyond my reach.

I didn’t find out from him, mostly because he’s dead now. Some guys in blue camouflage and black tactical gear just broke in one night, and the only reason I saw them at all is because they emptied a whole clip into him. I saw them running out the window, down the fire escape, and when I went into his room he was already gone. It looked like a horror movie. The worst part, actually, is that the police didn’t really do anything about it, they were too busy accepting bribes or getting their livers poisoned.

In the end, I had to leave Russia and go to the Zone myself. I took Andruha’s gear with me, so I didn’t show up practically naked like most stalkers do, but I did get quite a lot of hostility until I explained myself. They told me I was wearing armor from the Mercenary faction, and that those guys would simply show up, kill you, and leave you to rot without looking back. It made sense in the context of my cousin. So I had to poke around a bit, ask people, how do I find them? And eventually got pointed towards Rostok.

I met these military types in black armor, the Duty stalkers, and talked to plenty of them before I got anywhere. They brought me to Captain Ivantsov, and that was when I finally began to make headway.

“Of course we have a bone to pick with the mercs too, they’re generally evil, they use artifacts to get rich instead of turn them over to science where they belong. So, based upon your opinion and what my men have told me, you’re looking to launch a raid against them.”

“Um… yeah, I guess I am. Will you help me?”

“It could be a slow process if you’re looking for support from Duty. We’re an army as it is, so you’d have to volunteer for recruitment. We don’t accept cash payments for membership or for services.”

Well, I was desperate for their superior firepower and high-grade combat abilities, so of course I agreed. Mostly, it was just annoying, because I was with four other guys who were also trying to join up. They drilled us for I think three weeks, and by then it was winter, which made everything harder. And then after that they put us in just these black army clothes, no armor, and we each took a turn trying to kill a boar with just a knife. At least it was in their arena, so it wasn’t unbearably cold, but still. The thing practically gored me a bunch of times, and I remember finally realizing that I should get on top of a crate and jump down on it. One of the others died, and two of them couldn’t do it in the fifteen minutes allowed and were told they had to redo the previous training. But I made it, mostly because I was so desperate to get revenge on those mercs.

Another two weeks of patrolling the checkpoint in the Garbage and they decided I was combat-ready, so I was issued a specially insulated armored suit designed for winter. It was comfy, as armor goes, because all the padding helped cushion my chest any time a bullet hit my vest. And whatever was on the inside dried pretty quick, so if I got sweaty it didn’t last too long. They even let me keep my cousin’s gun, and fixed it up to be highly accurate because I’d tested as good with longer-range assault weapons. So now, I was finally ready, and I was put in a squad which would launch a raid into Wild Territory. It was slow to move outside the base because of the snow, which was almost up to my balls. Actually, the snow was kind of helpful in that they made anomalies very easy to see. Wherever an anomaly was, there would just be this perfect hole in the snow, so nobody found one the hard way.

We were armed very carefully, me with my M-4 while three guys had Grozas with grenade launchers and PSZ-9Md suits. Our sergeant, who was a long-time member, was pushing along in front of us because he had an exoskeleton, and he held a PKM machine gun. We were not anyone to be fucked with.

We got there in the middle of the night. The mercs were all grouped in this old construction site, a building that wasn’t finished, with winter tents on the middle level and a couple guards who were probably freezing their asses off up on the roof. My M-4 had a silencer, so with one of the others spotting for me I killed them both without being noticed. After that, though, I’m pretty sure they noticed us, because about fifteen VOG-25s were launched into their tents while Sergeant Dimshuk fired an entire box of ammo into them too. While this was happening I took off my silencer, and as he was reloading we got into position. One merc had managed not to get killed by the grenade launchers, but we took him down as soon as we saw him. Dimshuk and one other soldier stayed at the bottom to provide cover while I got on the roof for the same reason. The other two soldiers cleared the middle floor, counting nine bodies total. We made it back with all their salvageable gear and no casualties.

And basically… I’ve been here since then. I went back home for about a month, to go to the cemetery and also bring back tushonka and other things to help my faction through the winter. And I got this. [ _Lifts up a shirt sleeve to expose his left shoulder and a tattoo of the Duty faction shield._ ] Duty were the ones who helped me, they didn’t demand money. They even trained and armed me so that I could hunt those mercs and win. And now that I’ve been to the Zone, I understand why Andruha wanted to go back. Once you’ve been here, and really anybody will tell you this, it gets its claws in you, always pulling you back to it if you leave, even if it’s only for a short time.

During the spring, I was talking with a loner and he knew my cousin somehow. I found out Andruha was a merc, not one of the bad ones, but had somehow pissed off the other mercs and so they’d gone after him. I don’t know how I feel about that, really, but I stand by what I did. I will always believe I was right to kill those mercs, I’ll always be part of Duty. And I’ll always be here, in the Zone.

  
_Private Yakov Polyanin, Duty hunter and cousin to deceased mercenary Andruha Crowbar_


	3. About Families

It… ah, it was four years ago, now. It seems longer. I haven’t really been out on the Big Land since then, only for a little bit, to see my mother. I came here back in the summer of 2012, because I heard there were miracles here. My father was a liquidator, he was very sick, so I wanted to find something that could make him well again. Well… he actually died right after I got there. But I was in such denial, I just kept looking. I would find one of these miracles. For my family. But also really for myself, just so I wouldn’t go home with nothing. Well, the worst part is I did get one, after a friend of mine got killed by one of those Monolith lunatics. This was my friend Toshka’s best friend, they’d been together since the army, through Chechnya and the Spetsnaz corps. It was a very sad day for everyone.

We had to bury him, and then I brought the thing to my mom back home in Odessa. She was upset with me for being gone so long (it was October when I returned), but also happy that I came back at all. I showed her the stupid rock, and I told her I would never go back to the Zone, but this is the same infamous lie that every young stalker says to his mother. As evidenced by my presence here.

I saw Toshka again a few days ago… I go see him every so often with Vanya. He said you’ve already talked with him, which I think is good. He has some interesting stories. He’s a very brave man, just living here and raising his little daughter. She’s eight now, and she’s as smart as her pop, and she likes when we visit because sometimes we have candy. [ _He smiles wistfully._ ] The way how she calls me, “Uncle Kolya,” it’s just great, she’s a very sweet girl. Uncle Kolya and Uncle Vanya. Which is pretty much true, I’ve been through so much shit with Toshka by now, he basically is like my older brother.

It’s a very strange phenomenon. I’ve met plenty of stalkers who all said the same thing I did, that if you lose most or all of your family on the Big Land, you will always find a new one here. And it’s absolutely true. My brother Toshka, my boyfriend Vanya and his idiot brother Vladik. And everyone in Freedom, my own faction, they’re like a huge gathering of cousins, we share basically everything in this faction, from toothpaste and stories to whatever loot we pick up. If you find something you know one of your buddies wants or needs, even if you’re already overloaded, you bring it back with you anyway, because that’s just the culture we have there. I’ve never been one for the ant-like conformity that Duty has, or the loneliness of being a solitary stalker. In Freedom, it really is just a big family, we look out for each other, hang out after long shifts, roast kolbasas together. And if someone dies… well, we all mourn them together. It’s happened, and we all leave a can of food and a bottle of vodka on their bed. Then anyone can go there and share a meal with the person one last time.

You want to hear a joke?

Two loners and a Duty guy all die, and they go up to heaven to meet Saint Peter.

“Welcome to heaven,” he says to them, “what would you like for people to say about you at your funerals?”

The first: “I want to be known as the best comrade, always cheering up other stalkers and helping with medkits.”

“Okay, it is done,” Saint Peter says, then turns to the next one. “And you?”

The Duty guy: “I want to be known as the best soldier, stomping mutants, killing the most enemies. They know I went down in a storm of bullets, defending my outpost to the end.”

“Okay, it is done,” Saint Peter says, then turns to the last one. “And you?”

The third stalker thought and thought. Then he smiled and gave his answer: “Well… at my funeral, I want everyone to point to me and say ‘Look! He’s alive!’”

[ _He shakes his head, chuckling. I can tell he’s used to giving jokes._ ]

I learned that joke from Yar after I found out my father had died. Now, I say it to the dead themselves, whenever we lose someone. I don’t really know if there’s a god up there, watching us. I think maybe if there was people wouldn’t hate me just for being gay. But when someone I know dies, I kind of hope there is. Someone to carry their souls up to that place, where they’re always happy. And then us eventually. And we’d all meet up there, and be back with our families.

  
_Kolya Truck, Freedom sniper_


End file.
